Dreamer Required
by finkpishnets
Summary: Oneshot. If anyone knew, they would disown him instantly. They'd really think him a sick bastard, taking advantage of a girl not in her right mind. But it wasn't like that. Not really. Tony/Cassie.


**Title:** Dreamer Required

**Author:** finkpishnets

**Fandom:** Skins

**Rating:** T if you're old enough to watch Skins, you're old enough to read this.

**Pairing:** Tony/Cassie

**Spoilers:** Series 1

If anyone knew, they would disown him instantly. They'd really think him a sick bastard, taking advantage of a girl not in her right mind. But it wasn't like that. Not really. He was cruel but he wasn't _that_ disturbed.

Sleeping with Cassie wasn't about some twisted, manipulative scheme or about a quick one night stand because Michelle wasn't putting out and it would take too long to seduce one of the private school girls. It wasn't about pity either; he knew she had a whole lot of issues, but so did he.

More than anything, it was about comfort because, despite their fucked up lives and the way people viewed them, they could actually begin to understand each other. Before everything had happened with Effy, he would never have considered that a possibility. Someone trying to psychoanalyze him would have taken all the fun out of it. If there was one thing about him that was consistent, it was his ability to be an anomaly. Of course, he primarily kept that going because it was entertaining, but some small part of his brain (that he generally tried to ignore) told him that if his friends _really_ knew what he was like then they would hate him. And not just temporarily.

And he couldn't cope with that.

Cassie on the other hand, she knew he was a wanker; a self serving sadist who derived pleasure from the teenage difficulties and roller coasters of his friends. And yet she also saw that he didn't know how to be anything else.

After Effy, he had tried to sort himself out, he really had, but that had just appeared even more suspicious. His parents blamed him for his little sister's downfall (and everything else that was wrong with their lives), and his friends were still unsure around him after Russia.

Sid had come to realise just how weak Tony was on his own and was using that to his own advantage. He wasn't being cruel, he was just getting his own back for everything his best friend had put him through over the years.

Equally, Tony wasn't sleeping with Cassie as another way to hurt Sid. It had nothing to do with him.

It had nothing to do with any of them.

She had just appeared on his doorstep, wearing some crazy, ugly, _wonderful_ dress, her blonde hair in messy waves over her shoulders, as thin as ever and giving him one of her patented Cassie smiles. He didn't think they'd ever spent any time alone together up until then but he asked her in immediately, glad, above all else, for the company. When they'd reached his room, she'd flopped onto his floor and begun organising his CDs as if this was something they did all the time.

"I thought it was only food you did that with?" he'd said and she'd just grinned brightly in reply.

"Sometimes I expand into other areas."

And so he'd joined her on the floor and they had just hung out. It was weird to spend time with someone without booze and drugs and sex being involved.

Every afternoon for two weeks she came over to his house to spend time sitting around with him. They'd listen to music and talk about books and films and the universe. She'd talk in a dreamy voice about their friends and which animals represented them and he'd not offer her food but bring her a large glass of water when she arrived. It was comfortable and natural and that scared Tony a lot more than he'd ever admit.

Michelle would always claim to be the most special girl in Tony's life (with the possible exception of his little sister) because she was his girlfriend and no matter how many other girls he slept with, she was always the one he came back to. She deluded herself that he loved her, but Tony, in his darker moments, would wonder if he could actually love at all.

And yet lying silently on his bedroom floor next to Cassie was the first time he could ever remember having butterflies in his stomach and the strongest urge in the world to just hold someone until they were happy again.

He figured that made her the most special girl in his life.

So when, after those two weeks, they did sleep together, he thought it only right to tell her that.

He was glad she believed him.


End file.
